Battle of the Line

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In the Babylon 5 fictional universe, the Battle of the Line was the final battle of the Earth-Minbari war. 25,000 Humans participated in the battle. The cost was extremely high as fewer than 200 humans survived the battle. However, at the edge of victory, the Minbari inexplicably stopped themselves, and surrendered.

The battle was one of the most important events of the 23rd Century. The effects of the war were felt throughout the galaxy for many years following the war.

[edit] Background

About two years before the Battle of the Line, the first contact between Humans and Minbari had ended in disaster. The Minbari Grey Council were travelling aboard their Sharlin Class Warcruiser, and detected a convoy of Earth Alliance ships. The Minbari approached with their ship's gunports open, a traditional sign of respect in their culture. Dukhat, the Minbari council leader, knew that the humans would most likely not be aware of this tradition, and ordered the gunports closed. However, the order came too late; the captain of the lead Earth ship, thinking that the Minbari were about to attack (a belief compounded by the fact that the Minbari ship's sensors were so powerful as to prevent the Earth ships from opening jump points), panicked and opened fire. This resulted in the death of Dukhat, whereupon the remaining members of the Grey Council voted to declare war. Due to a tie vote, Delenn was called upon to cast the deciding vote. Filled with rage, she voted 'Yes', although she later sought to change her vote upon considering that the situation may have been a misunderstanding.

Over the next two years, the Minbari won many victories against the Humans. But the Humans made them fight for every inch of space, and Commander John Sheridan succeeded in destroying the Black Star, the Minbari flagship. Truce talks were attempted, but these efforts failed when the Centauri, thinking the negotiations were arms sales from the Narn to the humans, sabotaged the efforts.

Finally, after two years the Humans were losing the war. All the defenses had failed. A large Minbari fleet was approaching the Solar System. In order to allow some to escape, the President of the Earth Alliance ordered as many ships as possible to defend Earth to give as many people as possible time to get into neutral space.

[edit] Battle

A large Minbari fleet came out of hyperspace near Earth. Confident they could take out the Humans quickly and end the war, the Minbari fleet had bypassed the other Human colonies in the system, mainly Mars and Io, to strike at Earth directly. As with other engagements, the battle was not going well for the humans. The humans fought valiantly, but they were unable to damage or slow the Minbari fleet. The technologically superior Minbari decimated the human ships with little difficulty.

The Eve of Minbari victory

Sinclair attempting to ram a Minbari cruiser

Lt. Commander Jeffrey Sinclair watched as his entire squadron was destroyed in under 60 seconds. After his Starfury fighter suffered a critical hit, he decided to ram the nearest Minbari cruiser, and set a suicide course.

As the battle drew to an end, the Human fleet was annihilated, and the Minbari fleet virtually unscratched. But just as Earth’s doom seemed inevitable, the Minbari suddenly ceased fire, and their ships stopped advancing. The Minbari broadcast their surrender. Earth had not only been spared, it had won the war. There was much speculation as to why the Minbari chose to surrender when their victory was all but assured, but the Minbari’s governing Grey Council never explained its decision.

Earth losses were enormous. The battle losses were more than 20,000 Starfuries and 1,000 ships, rounding a total of over 200,000 deaths. It is said frequently that were only 207 survivors, but it's not clear if that number refers to Starfuries only, capital ships or both. It is unlikely that the number refers to people since many heavy ships survived, of which the EAS Hyperion alone has more than 250 crew.

[edit] Minbari surrender

"We must take one of them in. If our next step is the final assault on their world, we must know their defenses."

"Very well Delenn. Choose, but quickly. We're fast running out of candidates."

The Grey Council had gathered at the scene to watch the battle. Council member Delenn advocated taking a prisoner for interrogation. She was told to choose a target from the quickly diminishing pool of candidates. She pointed at a fighter, which was disabled and brought aboard the ship. The pilot was Lt. Commander Sinclair. Over the next few hours, Sinclair was interrogated. He was brought before the Grey Council, which marked the first time a Human stood in the council chambers. A council member scanned Sinclair with a triluminary. This triluminary was programmed to detect Valen's DNA sequence, and light up if it found even a piece of his DNA. What the council found stunned them. When they scanned him with the triluminary, the device reported that he not only had part of Valen's DNA, the device said he was Valen. At first the council did not want to believe this, so they pulled other humans on board and scanned them.

Sinclair during the Minbari "interrogation"

Because of the Minbari belief in reincarnation, they believed that Sinclair was the current host of Valen's soul. They thought that other Minbari souls were also in human bodies, and that they were harming their own souls through this war, a horrific concept to them. They also felt that what happened with Sinclair was a sign that the humans would become a needed ally in the upcoming Shadow War. They ordered Sinclair's memories of the examination purged, followed by his release. Delenn volunteered to stay close to Sinclair to observe him. The Grey Council ordered the Minbari to immediately cease hostilities, but refused to publicly explain this unexpected move which stunned both Minbari and Terran alike.

[edit] Aftermath

When Sinclair came to, he found that it was about 24 hours later. He learned that Earth had "won" the Minbari war. For many years he struggled with his feelings - particularly survivor's guilt. For the most part, he could not remember his experiences, although he later found that he remembered bits and pieces mainly through flashbacks.

The Earth Alliance had learned a powerful lesson as well. An arrogant attitude towards other races and military force had brought the Human race to the edge of extinction. They learned that they had to use diplomatic efforts to keep this from ever happening again.

With that thought in mind, the Earth Alliance commissioned the Babylon Project. The Babylon stations were intended as a place where people of different races could come and resolve their differences peacefully. The first three stations were destroyed during construction, either by sabotage or engineering failures. The fourth station was completed, but it disappeared in a time warp right after it became operational.

With assistance from the Minbari, Earth built one more Babylon station. It brought many races together, including Humans and Minbari. The station served as a base of operations in the Shadow War. When President Clark of Earth attempted to turn Earth into a neo-fascist state, Babylon 5 was central in the efforts to defeat him and restore freedom.

For a number of years after the war, Earth-Minbari relations were somewhat tense. Individuals from both races blamed the other for the death and destruction from the war. However, efforts by some Minbari, especially Delenn, resulted in greatly improving the relations between the two races.

Finally, in 2259, Jeffrey Sinclair was named Ambassador to Minbar. He was the first human allowed to reside full-time on the planet. As the Shadow War began to heat up, many Humans joined with Minbari in the Anla'Shok, or Rangers, including Sinclair, who became their leader (as Valen had been 1000 years before). The cooperation between the two species was vital in defeating the Shadows, and the forming of the Interstellar Alliance.

However, the results of the Battle of the Line caused some strife in Minbari society. A rift developed between the Religious and Warrior castes. The Grey Council did not explain their reasons for stopping the war to anyone, not even their generals. One war leader committed suicide rather than obey the order. The others grudgingly obeyed the order; however the Warrior caste resented the Religious caste for stopping the war after many of their people had died. While the issue was sublimated when the Minbari fought the large fight of the Shadow War, the issue came to a head in the months following that war. Eventually a brief civil war broke out over the issue, but largely through the efforts of Delenn, Lennier, and Neroon they were able to bring the war to an end. Delenn reformed the government to give the Worker caste a dominant role in Minbari society - feeling that they had been ignored for far too long.

The Minbari also learned that their isolationist policies were partially to blame for the tragic first contact. The Grey Council knew that if they had made contact with the Humans right away it could have been handled peacefully. They knew that to prevent a similar occurrence they had to reach out to other races, and keep an active presence in the galaxy.